


Uno!

by PierceTheVeils



Series: Fun and Games [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Competition, Discussion of Rules, Gen, Party Games, Post-Star Wars: A New Hope, Pre-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, UNO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:01:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26425321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PierceTheVeils/pseuds/PierceTheVeils
Summary: Luke is at a loss for what to do on the Rebel base at Hoth when Han suggests he join him for a card game. Just... not the card game Han had in mind.
Series: Fun and Games [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728667
Comments: 7
Kudos: 8





	Uno!

The worst thing about the rebel base on Hoth wasn’t that it was cold, Luke decided. No, the worst thing about this ice bucket was that it was boring. 

Luke’s first days in the Rebel Alliance had been a whirlwind of excitement. In the days following the destruction of the Death Star, he and his new friends had gone on a diverse set of missions, never staying in one place long enough to think of it as the new base. Now that Luke actually had a moment of respite on Hoth, he missed the constant motion that had occupied his last few months as a rebel. If he kept moving, he didn’t have to think about how drastically his life had changed. Or how much he’d lost.

He hadn’t been given time to mourn his aunt and uncle back on Tatooine. At Uncle Ben’s urging, Luke had left for Alderaan almost immediately after their slaughter. Then Uncle Ben had died, sacrificing himself to save Luke and the others as they escaped the Death Star. Luke had only taken a moment to reflect on that sacrifice. Not long after, thirty pilots had set out with him on a mission to blow up the Death Star. Though the mission had succeeded, only three X-wing pilots returned. Among the dead? One of Luke’s oldest friends.

Luke had tried talking about the deaths with other rebels. Some were more sympathetic than others, but most just told him that’s how war was. The Empire didn’t care how many people it had to kill in order to maintain its grip on the galaxy. While the Rebel Alliance did their best to avoid harming innocents, they couldn’t be afraid to fight back. To die if needed. Not if there was to be any hope for a liberated galaxy.

Leia had been the most understanding, but Luke found he didn’t like complaining to her. She’d lost even more than he had. He hadn’t comprehended the magnitude of what she’d suffered at first. Now that he’d seen the princess dedicate herself to tracking down survivors of Alderaan’s cataclysm, he couldn’t believe how insensitive he’d been when they first met. Luke had lost his whole world. Leia had lost her whole planet. They weren’t the same.

Leia may be the strongest, most inspiring person Luke had ever met in his life, but no matter how hard she tried to hide it, he sensed her grief through the Force. The more he focused on the Force, the clearer her essence and emotions became. It was like they were connected by an invisible tether. Luke was convinced he’d always be able to sense her, no matter how far apart they were. 

Some days, he wondered if she sensed him too. But if she didn’t have the Force like he did, that shouldn’t be possible. Right? Luke wasn’t sure. There was still so much he didn’t understand about the Force.

Darn, he was doing it again. Losing himself in a useless thought spiral. How Luke longed for his next mission. He needed to get out of this base and  _ do  _ something. He didn’t have a reason to venture out in the snow per se, but even a ride on the back of a Tauntaun could do wonders for him.

Resolving to do just that, Luke stood from his bed. He was halfway through getting dressed for the elements when Han came bursting in.

“Hey, kid! Where are you going?”

“Han!” Luke had completely forgotten Han was back. He and Chewbacca had returned late yesterday from a mission of their own. “I’m just going out. I want to get away from the base for a bit while it’s still light out.”

“You aren’t moping again, are you? You need to stop sitting around.”

“I’m not moping,” Luke argued on reflex. “I’m just bored. I haven’t been assigned another mission for a while. There’s only so much to do on a base like this! I need something to do.”

“Well why don’t you come with me? Chewie nicked a deck of cards for us on our way back to base. I think Her Highness might even stoop to joining us this time.”

“That would be fun. I know Leia’s been busy.” Luke had never been very good at cards. Still, anything was better than laying on his back all day. This was probably better than a trip through the cold as well. “What are we playing?”

“Sabacc,” Han declared, a smirk forming on his face. “I’m gonna take everything you own, kid.”

“Hey, go easy on me! We don’t all spend our free time gambling, you know.” Luke followed Han’s lead out of the room.

“I know. You’re about to learn how to play the hard way, just like I did.” Han threw an arm over Luke’s shoulders as they traversed a deserted hallway. “I won the Falcon in a game of Sabacc, you know. Her old owner never forgave me for it.” Han used that statement as a launching point for an elaborate tale of risk and betrayal. Luke could have sworn he’d heard the story before. Just with fewer embellishments last time.

When the two turned into an empty conference room and stopped in front of a table, the deck in Chewbacca’s hands did  _ not  _ include the cards one used to play Sabacc. Han’s face fell to the floor and shattered. “Chewie! What is this?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never played Uno,” Leia spoke up from her spot facing the door. Chewbacca sat to her left, shuffling the deck. To her right stood C-3PO and R2-D2. R2-D2 could barely see over the table’s edge.

C-3PO waved upon their entrance. “Master Luke! I’m so glad to have you join us. Princess Leia has graciously allowed Artoo Detoo and myself a place at the gaming table. Isn’t that generous of her?”

“I am not playing a kid’s game. How am we supposed to gamble on Uno?”

“Is money all you think about?” Leia asked, a tint of scorn coloring her voice.

Han scoffed. “Of course not! I also think about pretty women.” He winked, then pointed to Chewie. “Oh, and ships. Blasters too.”

Chewie growled in affirmation. At the end of the day, those four things together made for a pretty good summary of Han’s brain. 

Luke leaned forward, confused. “I don’t think we have Uno on Tatooine. How do you play?”

“Fear not, Master Luke! Uno is indeed a game designed for children. As such, its rules are not complex at all. You see, each person begins the game with seven cards in their hand. We start with a single card facing upwards in the middle of the table. If the person playing has a card that fits one of the following three criteria, they are able to expel that card from their hand and place it atop the starting card. The criteria for playing a card are as follows: one, the card is the same color as the one on the table; two, the card bears the same number or action as the one on the table; or three, the card is a wild card. Once you have played a card, it is the turn of the person sitting next to you in most circumstances.”

“Action cards? What does that mean?”

“Well, Master Luke, the majority of cards in the deck show a number between zero and nine, just in four different colors. However, there is a minority of action cards that are colored as well. Three types of action cards exist in total: the skip card, the reverse card, and the draw two card. The skip card skips the turn of the person in line to play next. The reverse card reverses the direction of who plays next, hence why I did not specify a direction of rotation in my previous explanation. Finally, a draw two card forces the person set to play after you to add two cards to their hand instead of taking a normal turn. As the objective of the game is to be the first person with no cards in your hand, no player wants to draw cards.”

“Don’t forget about draw fours, either,” Leia added. “There are two types of wild cards, Luke. One just allows you to change the color to whatever you want. The other also lets you do that, but it forces the person next to you to draw four cards. Hence the name.”

“Are we allowing draw cards to compound in this game?” Han asked. He seemed to have come around to the idea of playing Uno. “Say someone uses a draw two on me and I have a draw two in my hand. Can I use my draw two to pass the buck onto the next guy and make him draw four?”

C-3PO’s head whirled around to Han. “What? Master Solo, that rule is not present anywhere in the Uno code of conduct! Whyever would we include it in our game?” R2-D2 bleeped out a response, causing C-3PO even more offense. “No, Artoo, I do not care if that is how you have played for decades. If it is not in the official rules, we will not adhere to it. That is final!”

“You said it yourself, Goldenrod. The ‘official’ rules were created for children. I bet you don’t allow picking ‘til playing either.”

“Picking until what?” All this back and forth was confusing Luke. “What does that mean?”

“If it’s your turn to play and you don’t have a card in your hand that fits the criteria, you draw cards into your hand until you have something you can put down. Alternately, some games only have you draw one card in situations like that. If you can’t play the card you drew, your turn ends there,” Leia explained. “The reason people don’t always like ‘picking ‘til playing’ is because it allows one person to end up with over half the deck in their hand sometimes.”

“You mean that’s the reason they  _ love _ it, Princess. Bad enough we don’t have a Sabacc deck, but you want to play by the kiddie rules of Uno as well? Where’s the fun in that?” Now Han was just arguing for the sake of being difficult. Luke was sure of it.

Leia shook her head. “Who taught you this game, anyway?”

Han kicked his feet up onto the table. “The mean streets of Corellia’s shipbuilding district. They taught me every game I know. I’ve been throwing chips with the gangsters since I was a teenager. If a game didn’t have stakes, I didn’t play.”

“These must not have been very impressive gangsters if they brought teens into their Uno games.”

Han froze, then recovered. “Look, all I’m saying is that I don’t play games with the safety on. Either we include compounding and picking til you can play, or I’m out of here.”

“I’ve never played either version before. I’ll do whatever you want.” Luke took a seat next to R2-D2. He turned to the astromech and asked. “You’ll help me learn the ropes, right Artoo?”

Luke frowned at R2’s response. All the droid promised was to beat him to a pulp. Who knew an old astromech would take Uno so seriously?

After conceding to Han’s stubbornness, Leia took a minute to persuade C-3PO to accept Han’s version of the game’s rules. Once all of that was settled, Chewbacca finished his shuffling and dealt six stacks of seven cards. The remainder of the deck went into the middle of the table. Chewbacca flipped over the card on the top, revealing a blue three.

“Who goes first?” Luke asked. He pulled his cards in close, following the others’ lead on how to situate them in his hand.

“The dealer does.” Leia nodded to Chewbacca, who tossed his blue seven on top of the three. “Hold on. Which way are we rotating? Am I next, or is Han?”

Chewbacca shrugged. Han took advantage of the uncertainty to determine the flow of cards for himself. He added a blue nine to the pile over Leia’s objections. “What? People who play first get to Uno faster.” He leaned over to Luke. “That’s another important rule, by the way. When you only have one card in your hand, you have to shout ‘Uno!’ for everyone to hear. If you don’t do it before the next person plays, you’re forced to draw two cards.”

Luke nodded. “Okay… wait, is it my turn?”

“Yeah. Put down a blue, a seven, or a wild card. Wild cards are black and labeled.”

Luke checked his hand to see if he had anything like that. He did have one blue card. “I play… this zero.” He tossed it down onto the growing pile.

R2-D2 bleeped his offence, much to Luke’s confusion. “What’s wrong, Artoo?”

“Luke, that isn’t a zero, that’s a skip card. You just skipped Artoo’s turn.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “Sorry, Artoo. That was my only blue card.”

“Then it is my turn to play. I choose… this card!” C-3PO added a blue two to the pile. 

Leia followed his play a two as well… a green two. “I hope you have a couple green cards, Luke.”

“I do. Thanks!”

Han snorted. “Don’t be nice to him. He needs to learn how to play for real.”

“It’s his first time! We can build up to being more competitive in later rounds,” Leia leaned back in her seat, back straight. “Also, it’s your turn.”

“Oh. What did Chewie play? Hm…” Han changed the color to red. “Take that, kid.”

“I actually have more red cards. Thanks, Han!” Luke played a red six to demonstrate.

Leia smiled. “You’re not supposed to tell people what cards you have, Luke. If you tell us what you have, we can strategize a way to prevent you from playing just as easily as we helped you.”

“Oh!” Luke shrank back, a bit bashful now. He hadn’t thought there was so much strategy one could put into a children’s game.

“Ah! Artoo Detoo. That was not necessary and you know it!” C-3PO bent over the table to draw two cards. R2-D2 laughed at him as he did so. “Oh dear. Your turn, Princess.”

And so the game settled into a steady rhythm. Luke was able to play two more cards without difficulty. The problem arose when R2-D2 reversed the direction of gameplay. For the first time since the game began, Luke had no cards in his hand that he could use. 

Han realized what was happening before anyone else at the table. “Get drawing, kid.”

Luke’s shoulder’s sunk. The first two cards he brought into his hand provided no assistance to his current plight, but the third… “Aha! Wild card.” Luke threw it onto the pile without hesitation. “I change the color to green.”

“That’s no wild card,” Han grumbled. “That’s a  _ draw four _ wild card. Thanks a lot, Luke.”

“Sorry! That’s all I could play. You saw me drawing.”

“That’s what you get for mocking him,” Leia said with a smile. Then she ate crow on her turn when Chewbacca whipped out a skip card on her.

“What were you saying, Princess?”

Leia pursed her lips. “I was about to say that if we aren’t careful, Chewbacca’s going to win this game soon.”

Chewbacca asked if that was really a bad thing. Meanwhile, C-3PO sought revenge on R2-D2 for making him draw cards earlier and reversed the direction of gameplay once again. “You may play after all, Princess Leia.”

“Thank you, Threepio.” Leia accepted the droid’s gesture with grace. She was only a card behind Chewbacca now.

Chewbacca would have been pleased with his position… had he not realized at that moment he had neither a green nor a five to play. He drew from the deck one by one, his groan growing louder with each card he drew. After taking five cards into his hand, he found a green one to use.

“See? This is where the picking until playing rule is helpful. Keeps the game from ending too early.” Han barely looked as he tossed a card down.

Luke could not be happier with the current situation. Of the five cards he held in his hand, four of them were green. If no one changed the color for the next few rounds, he would get pretty close to winning in no time. And for a full round, it looked like he was going to get his wish. Only Leia had no more green cards to play, and she was able to draw one first thing from the deck. 

In that brief moment, the six players went about their turns in harmony. But everything changed when the draw twos attacked. 

R2-D2 played the first one, much to C-3PO’s outrage. “Really, Artoo? For the second time in a single game? Simply not enough rounds have passed for you to accrue two such cards so quickly. Well this time, I won’t take your aggression without a fight.” C-3PO threw down a draw two card of his own, this one blue in color. “Sorry to be this way, Princess, but I cannot afford to let Artoo Detoo torment me so.”

“Don’t worry about it, Threepio. I have a way of protecting myself.” Leia played her own draw two card. 

Han laughed. “Look’s like the tab’s on you, Chewie. Better draw six before you… ah, hey!” Chewbacca added one last draw two to the pile, his a bloody red in hue. “It didn’t have to be this way!”

“No draw two of your own, Han?” 

“No!” Han grumbled, then counted eight cards from the deck. “What I get for letting us play like this.”

Luke was grateful to have been spared the pain of drawing ten, but maybe if he had he would have had a red card to play for his turn. He had to double his hand before he had anything useful to contribute. By this point in the game, only Han had more cards than Luke.

“I’m not sure I like this game,” Luke spoke over R2-D2’s chirp of glee as he played a red four. 

“A lot of it is luck,” Leia admitted, ignoring C-3PO’s rising protests. She had to draw for her turn, but once again was lucky enough to get a card she could play on the first try. The number of cards in her hand remained a steady two.

When the round came back to Luke, he too got lucky, for the card on top was a red six, and Luke had a green six in his hand. He changed the color back to the one he had the most of.

R2-D2 also appreciated the change in color. The droid threw down a green eight, then declared victory. A quick glance under the table revealed that he had no cards left to his name.

“What? The droid?” Han reacted to the news first. “But he didn’t even declare Uno!”

“He did declare it, Master Solo. You all just didn’t hear his bleeping over Master Luke’s commentary about the nature of Uno.” 

R2-D2 concurred with C-3PO. He’d won that game fair and square.

Leia laid her remaining hand out on the table with grace. “Good job, Artoo. That was a fun first game.” She turned to Luke. “Now that you know how the game works, do you want to try again?”

Luke hesitated, then nodded. “Sure. Want to try again, Han?”

Han groaned, tossing all twelve of his cards out onto the table. “Yeah, I got off to an awful start. You just wait for me to get into my stride, though. I’ll crush all of you!”

He never did. Their group of six played a total of five games of Uno, and Han never won a single one. Luke did, though. He took a dark horse victory in the last game of the night after a full hour and a half of card playing. By the time they wrapped up, it was well into the night on Hoth.

Sure, Uno might not be the most productive thing this band of rebels could have done with their day. But like Han said, it sure beat moping.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic took me entirely too long to put together. Like Secret Empire, seating arrangements play a critical role in the plot of this fic. As I hate stressing myself out over seating arrangements, the next game will not be concerned with such trivial matters. I've already decided what it will be: Anidala playing checkers. 
> 
> But yeah, I hope you all enjoy this silly little one shot. Know that I appreciate everyone's feedback (minus the trollfics mocking my... no wait, I did actually enjoy the trollfic mocking my pain. Never mind), and am so grateful to have all of you as readers. Until next time!


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